MATCHMAKING – St. Louis Jewish Film Festival Review

MATCHMAKING, one of the best comedies at this year’s St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, is a romantic comedy about a young Orthodox Jewish who seems to have everything a family could want in a match – good family, good grades, good looks – but who is pining for a girl who, on paper, does not match up.

Yeshiva student Moti Bernstein (Amit Rahav) is a good student and obedient son from a respected Israeli Ashkenazi Jewish family who has reached the age to start looking for a wife. Moti is a catch who has it all – handsome, smart, tall, from a good Ashkenazi family – everything any matchmaker or Orthodox family would want. As an A-list candidate in the books of Orthodox matchmaking, Moti is a guy who should have his pick of any girl he wants for a bride. So what’s the problem? While the matchmaker is busily arranging dates to match this A-list find, Moti is secretly falling for his sister’s best friend, a girl no matchmaker would pick for this top prospect. But who decides it is a perfect match?

The delightfully funny, charming Israeli romantic comedy MATCHMAKING poses just this dilemma, where the heart and the head part ways in the matter of marriage, while giving us insights into the world of Orthodox Jewish matchmaking. MATCHMAKING leans into the comedy, with wonderful performances and a surprising amount of slapstick in this light Jewish take on Romeo and Juliet. The Israeli romantic comedy, directed and co-written by Erez Tadmor, has been a hit at numerous Jewish film festivals and a smash in Israel, with its charming performances, laugh-out-loud moments, and thoughtful look at the practice of matchmaking in the Jewish Orthodox community.

The matchmaker looks at their lists of people seeking a marriage and match people up according to family background and standing, the prospect’s personal characteristics and interests, and offers those prospective brides and grooms to their clients, with the approval of families. The couple then meet in a short series of dates, where they ask each other questions and get a sense of the potential spouse. But ultimately, it is the couple who decide. If he thinks she’s his match, he proposes and the wedding is on. If either thinks it won’t work, he or she can turn down further dates.

Eager to please his parents and looking forward to the marriage that will start his adult life, Moti dutifully goes on his arranged dates with some beautiful young women, including a gorgeous American Jewish young woman from a rich family. She is a rare catch, and marriage to her would mean his future would be secured and comfortable, and he would be free spending his time as a scholar, studying the Torah, the highest, most prestigious ambition in his community. Yet Moti’s eye is repeatedly drawn to his younger sister’s friend Nechama (Liana Ayoun).

He’s known this girl practically all his life, yet now when he is supposed to be deciding between one perfect girl and another, he keeps thinking about her instead of the prospects he’s dating. She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s serious – all things Moti admires – but she’s also half-Sephardic, with a mother from North Africa, which in Israeli Orthodox society means her family is nowhere near his equal. She’s on no one’s A-list, and the only Ashkenazi she could hope to be paired with is Moti’s short, asthmatic, socially-awkward schoolmate . It’s a mismatch in the matchmakers’ books.

Moti is a dutiful son and tries to focus on his obligation to pick a spouse that pleases his family, but what about his own heart? Will he forget her with time, as others tell him, especially if his choice lands him in the lap of luxury? What should Moti do – and what’s more, what can he do?

The cast is charming and the love-and-marriage conundrum allows the film to gently explore the limits of matchmaking, where family standing and parents’ preferences rather than the young person’s feelings that determine what is a perfect match. The film gently discusses the pros and cons of the system – it’s success in pairing like to like backgrounds for a solid marriage versus what can go wrong if couple’s families are too different.

As Moti, Amit Rahav gives a strong performance as the appealingly conflicted young man, trying to be the perfect son but also aware of his growing feelings. As Nechama, Liana Ayoun is appealing as well, but someone who is more practical and even skeptical, and looks at the situation with less emotion and with a wary eye on Moti’s feelings, wondering if they might fade. Even if they both want this match – by no means clear – what would be the price be for their families?

As the two young people and their families dance around the problem, MATCHMAKING throws in little comic relief bits as we explore the serious side of the issue. Some of that comic relief comes from one of Moti’s classmates, a shy, awkward guy with asthma who is not on anyone’s A list despite his good family. While Moti goes on his dates, Nechama goes on a few of her own, with no winning prospects but some comic moments. On the other hand, a male matchmaker, Baruch (a wonderful warm and funny Maor Schwietzer), who never married and still lives at the yeshiva, revisits his own tragic romantic history.

MATCHMAKING weaves all these elements – thoughtful, humorous, romantic – into a wonderful, funny and warm tapestry that leads to insights on the challenges of love and marriage.

MATCHMAKING, in Hebrew with English subtitles, plays the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, Apr. 14 at 3:30pm at the B&B West Olive Cinema in Creve Coeur.